Atheists Facing Prejudice

Seeing as it is the way of this new world, where everyone is deeply and personally offended by any topic of great substance, one must commence this editorial with a surrender to any possibility of backlash.

This piece is not intended to ill-treat any religious individuals, nor to victimize the opposite standing. What is presented is merely an observation of events concerning two contrarious groups, with insights from atheists, a party that is heavily invalidated and disfavored by the public. With that said, let’s rant!

As with most groups made up of perpetual entitlement, it is the Christians’ personal duty to carry out a vendetta against any standpoints that differ from their own. In this case, we’re focusing on atheists.

Atheists (people who do not believe in the existence of a God or several gods) are inherently cited to be one of the most distrusted parties in multiple countries.

A 2014 study by Pew Research Center issued the hypothetical scenario, “A car is left abandoned, with all the items inside stolen. Who is most likely to have stolen them?” with the choices being a gang member, a drug addict, a rapist, and an atheist.

Astonishingly, the atheist was the most chosen individual to be mistrusted, on par with rapists. This may be due to the misconception that without a church to follow, a person has no morality, even though people of faith are cited as being six times more likely to commit a crime than people without.

“People think that we’re only atheists so we can live without morals, which is absolutely wrong,” said sophomore, Jon Edwards. “If a Christian goes out and hurts someone but repents afterwards, it’s all good. Meanwhile, us atheist ‘heathens’ are completely screwed.”

You see, it is one of the sacred traditions of Hollywood to make the villains of their films a member of an often-bigoted classification. Such is evident in the 2014 Christian film, God’s Not Dead.

This film differentiates from other brainwashing propaganda, in the sense that  rather than covering their ears and screaming “la la la I can’t hear you” at the mention of other beliefs, they introduce an atheist character, Kevin Sorbo. But of course he is the angry, depraved deviant that the wholesome, ‘godly’ kids must overcome and convert. Want to guess how it ends?

It is evident that the writers were ignorant of the basic meaning of atheism, with the character going on frequent rampages including, (to paraphrase) ‘God took everything from me, and for that I hate him!’ And to that I must give an obnoxious Donald Trump “WRONG!”

“People think we hate God, but that isn’t true… we just don’t believe in God,” said sophomore, Jesenia Rivera. “I hate God the same as I hate Voldemort, or Gaston from Beauty and the Beast… or any other fictional character that doesn’t really exist.”

Now, this discourse isn’t a means to engage in the Oppression Olympics of who has it the worst. It stands only to open a conversation about religious freedom for all — rather than having the prerogative to disregard others’ beliefs so as to demonstrate our own.